On 5/15/08, Chris Puttick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > ----- "P Kishor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > But disagree there. Switching from M$ documents to 'real' open > > source > > > documents and dropping licensed graphical data in favour of OSM and > > other > > > free map data opens the door to 'Standardising' on something that we > > can all > > > cooperate on. > > > > It still is not clear what the "something" is... are you advocating a > > standard for a license or a standard for a format? Are you talking > > about standards in office-productivity applications (word-processing, > > spreadsheet, presentation software) or in databases (should we > > boycott > > everyone who uses Oracle and Ingres?) or remote sensing (does IDL go > > out the window?) or medical imaging or audio or video or ... you get > > the picture. Let me repeat my question. > > > > Standard for what? > > > > > > > Standards for everything that matters.
Chris, You are conflating a whole boatload of things here, and "everything that matters" is about the biggest boatload there can be. > > A physical example: in the UK we have a standard for electrical plugs and > sockets and for the supply. This means that I can buy a lamp or a fridge I > can be sure it will be able to plug in to my electrical socket and just work > and I don't risk death by using it. And, when I travel from the US to the UK, I am sol unless I carry a "driver" or a "translator" that allows me to connect my appliance to the UK grid. What was the standard here? I didn't force UK to change to 110 v and to flat pins. I just went to the market and bought a translator. > > It is my choice to have switched sockets or unswitched. The plug can be > black or white or chrome (hopefully not chrome...); it can be rubberised and > curvy or hard plastic and square. The sockets can be sunk into the wall or > surface mounted or in trunking and also any colour/material (mine are black > nickel, which is nice without being too much, but I digress...). It doesn't > matter i.e. these factors are not part of standard, because what matters is > that the socket has 3 specifically sized rectangular pins, positioned just > so, with the right pin "live" and fused appropriately, the left pin neutral > and the top pin earth. The socket needs to have the equivalent sized and > placed holes and wired appropriately and if switched the switch needs to meet > certain specifications. The UK electrical supply is legally required to be > 50Hz AC at 230V +/- 10% > > That's it. That's the bits that need to be standardised. And not only are > supply and sockets and plugs standardised but mandated to be so. This means I > can buy my sockets from whomever made by whomever and my plugs are sourced by > the manufacturers of my electrical equipment from whomever. Bring it all > together with my power supply from yet another supplier and it all works fine. > > SQL already is a standard (the openness of it let's debate another day). A > well-behaved (R/O)DBMS responds more or less the same way to an SQL query as > the others. This has been a useful evolution of databases, reflecting their > relative age. But we do not have standards in many areas of digital life > where it would be important, or where the standards exist, they are not being > mandated and therefore are not being adopted. SQL is not a data storage format. SQL is a query standard, and a fairly malleable one. Are you talking about data storage formats or about query standards? > > So the shortish answer to your question: standards for the digital plugs and > sockets and standards for the digital power supply. The plugs and sockets are > the APIs and the protocols; lots of that is already sorted. The digital power > supply is the information that flows, the stuff that is important in this > information age we are entering. It is there we are short of standards. I > don't want to dictate to anyone what software they should use. I do think I > should be able to demand that they provide information in a standardised > format and this not be an issue because they don't have a specific software > package. Where there are no available standards we have to be pragmatic > initially, but we must move, with some urgency, towards a position where > there are standards for those interchanges i.e. develop them either from > existing formats or by starting clean. > My shortish reply is that there is no shortish reply. I am with you with regards to the sentiment. But I am convinced that the digistan/"Hague declaration" is not the way to go about doing so. We've had a lot of discussion about standards on OSGeo lists as well as on Geowanking lists. Some of that discussion merits re-reading. Some are born standards (Shapefiles, by virtue of first-entry as well as subsequent ubiquity), some achieve standards (OGC-type standards by discussion and committee), and others have standards thrust upon them (big agencies using MS-Word or ArcGIS). In the end, the most useful and easy to implement format and query interchange method approaches the level of a standard. > It's not about control or restrictions, its about real choice. You get to > choose which applications you use for which jobs and do so without concerns > about operating systems or the applications being used by your client or > other stakeholders, because the information will flow as a standard all can > read without issue. > > As to why governments first? Another long answer for another time... > > > Chris > > > ------ > Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open Document > Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit > http://iso26300.info for more information. > I found this end-tag to your email quite humorous unintentionally -- thankfully no file was attached, but if it had been, and if I had had difficulty opening it, seems like it would have been my responsibility to figure out how to open it. Thankfully, my life didn't depend on it. Some "standards" have a long way to go before they become a standard. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
